Reader Christina has a (broken) water heater from Sears. It’s covered under a warranty, but Sears isn’t willing to replace it. She’s been without hot water for 3 weeks and Sears just doesn’t care.

Name: Christina | Address: [redacted] | City: Tulsa
> >| State: OK | Zip: [redacted] | Country: USA | Day Phone: [redacted] |
> >Evening Phone: [redacted] | Email: [redacted]

I am disgusted about the service that I have received from your workers. I know that sears doesn’t care about its customers nor does it stand behind its worthless products that it sells. I will not waste more of my time explaining this to you for the 100th time, you should be able to look at my account and clearly see that your stupidity and lack of customer service is my problem.

I have been waiting two weeks to get a water heater replaced. I was supposed to get a call yesterday and didn’t. I was supposed to get it installed today and didn’t. Big surprise, you don’t care! I want you to reimburse for the water heater, the permit, the warranty, and to be compensated for the stress of not having hot water for three weeks while you did nothing. While no one called me, no one did anything. I will contact my lawyer, I will report you to the BBB.

You don’t deserve to be in business and hopefully someone will put an end to sears soon. DO NOT CALL ME!!! I refuse to get stressed out listening to your scripted, we’re sorry, we’re going to do everything we can to help you out because your important. If I was, I would have hot water by now. You may email your response, if you can not honor my request you can send this to the corporate office and have the president of sears look at it. if he wont, then we will settle this in court. I fully expect for you to do the right thing for a change and get my water heater out hear within 24 hours and mail my check for my trouble of buying from sears to begin with which I WILL NEVER DO AGAIN!

Sears replied:

Where was this water heater purchased? Was this through your local Sears or over the water heater sales line? If this was purchased through the store, we at Sears.com would not have access to your order and would need to direct you to the store.

If this was purchased through the sales line, what phone number was used and what name would it be under? Did you get a reference number? We would need some kind of information from the order to get the order to pull up. I have even tried calling the installation department as well as the service line and your name or phone numbers did not bring up any results.

I personally have not seen this order and would like the opportunity to try and get this resolved for you. I also understand that you have probably heard that before and do not feel like hearing it again, but I would like to try to help you with this. Even if the order was placed through the store, if you call us, we could even help by doing a conference call to the store and to the installation department and try to figure out what went so horribly wrong and see what can be done to get your water heater installed.

Our number here at the water heater sales line is 800-877-6420. My name is Grant and I am here most evenings, minus Sunday and Wednesday. If you would like to give me a call, my extension is 10093. If I am on a call, you can leave your name and number with whoever you talk to and I can call you back.

At this point and after reading your e-mail, I do not blame you for being angry. If you feel like you need to pursue this further legally, I would need to refer you to the legal department at 847-286-8371.

I know you do not want more apologies, but I do feel sorry that this has happened and do regret the inconvenience that this particular situation

has caused you.

If you feel so inclined to ask for my assistance, please give me a call, or e-mail me back, I have marked your e-mail so I can take ownership of

any further correspondence and will do what I can for you.

Look for Great Ideas throughout the store and find Sears exclusive innovations from great brands like Sony, Kenmore, NordicTrack, Craftsman and Reebok.

Grant B. Sears.com Customer Care

Christina replied:

You can not find my information because I have called you all a million times and told you my new number but nobody seems to want to write it down.

The old number is [redacted] The new number is [redacted] The cell number is [redacted]

This is suppose to be a replacement because the other piece of crap water heater I got from you guys broke AGAIN! For God’s sake just look at your own website, nobody has anything good to say about your water heaters. Its all people who are mad because their water heater is doing the same thing mine has. They should last more than a year.

I don’t know why you cant look me up by anything but my number, you had my name and address what kind of shitty customer service is this?

If you can give what I have asked for by all means, otherwise, you will need to forward this on to your corporate office because I will not be swept under the carpet. I will not be ignored, every day I go without hot water is one more day that I take the time to spread the word about how sears has treated me.

Sears replied:

Dear Ms. [redacted]:

Thank you for visiting Sears.com, we appreciate hearing from you.

Unfortunately, we are unable to provide the information you requested via e-mail. We encourage you to contact our Installation department by telephone, at (800)859-6000.

Thank you for choosing Sears for your home service needs.

Sincerely,

Larry D Sears Holdings Corporation

Christina replied:

Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:28:21 -0500

I got a call saying that you can not find anyone to install my water heater which is suppose to be covered under my warranty that I paid for. This is unacceptable! I will not pay someone to install your piece of shit water heater and only be reimbursed $219. I have called 5 companies in the Tulsa area and the quotes they have given me have ranged from $500-$700 depending on what all they have to do. You are not going to get away with this.

I want to be refunded to total price of the water heater plus tax, I want to be refunded for all of my warranties, and I want the cost of installation. I will go to another company. I refuse to have anything to do with you ever again.

You can not do this to me, I have the warranty which guarantees you to replace my water heater and installation, not a portion of the installation.

And I don’t want any stupid vouchers for sears!

Christina

You could keep arguing with Sears, or you could just sue them for breach of warranty in small claims court. The limit in Oklahoma is $6,000, which should cover your complaint. You may think suing a huge corporation like Sears is futile, but it’s not. Here’s a story from one reader who sued Best Buy over a defective washing machine and won. We’d also report Sears to your attorney general.

Before you put on your lawyer pants, you might want to try Sears’ public relations number: 847-286-8371.

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